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History

Establishment of the Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System

An Arctic Regional Ocean Observing System (Arctic ROOS) was established in December 2007 established by a group of 14 member institutions from nine European countries working actively with ocean observation and modelling systems for the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas.

One of the goals of Arctic ROOS is to contribute to the legacy of IPY, maintaining cost-effective and useful observing systems after the end of IPY.

Arctic ROOS intends to include more members from countries outside of Europe and become a GOOS Regional Alliance for the Arctic. Arctic ROOS has established a secretariat at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway.

Arctic ROOS is a contribution to the IPY project no. 379: "IPY Operational Oceanography for the Arctic Ocean and adjacent seas" coordinated by Prof. Ola M. Johannessen. The project was submitted in 2005 and endorsed by IPY in 2006.

TOPAZ model simulations for the Atlantic Ocean, the Nordic Seas and the Arctic Ocean, used to present ice-ocean forecasts,

disseminated through the web site http://topaz.nersc.no. The forecasts are produced by the Mohn-Sverdrup Center

for Operational Oceanography at the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center.

The objective of the meeting was to plan the next steps in organizing and developing operational oceanography services for the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. This is a follow-up of the planning document ("The Arctic Ocean and the Need for an Arctic GOOS") published by EuroGOOS in 2005. At present there are several ongoing projects and services in operational oceanography in the Arctic and during IPY there will be increased data collection and modelling efforts that can be used as building blocks for Arctic GOOS. The outcome of the meeting was to identify the next steps to develop an Arctic GOOS Alliance based on the initiatives taken by EuroGOOS and the good support from IOC, IGOOS, and Non-European countries as USA and Canada.